Category: Greece

Smell of Spring

That was another time,
When April lasted all year
And snakes were unafraid
To wander in and out
Of open doors
As they slithered in the yard
Preoccupied, it seemed,
On just where they
Should lay their eggs.

Sweet orange blossoms
Stained the path
Which came to our door,
The path the children used
To tricycle to and fro,
As I sat on the steps,
Watching,
And let smell of magnolia
And confederate jasmine
Strip away my winter
And clothe my nakedness.

 
Beloved Country

I returned!
Again I saw
The land
Where I was born!

Where fence posts
Shelter oven birds.

Where grass
And gardenia
Perfume the breezes
Of my river

Where my soul
Surrenders to you.

That’s why I returned.
I returned!

 
Memory

I returned. I lived all around the world.
After a whole lifetime, I returned. But what did i
Find? The same clear sky which I remembered,
The same rivers, the same mountains, the same
Breezes of my childhood, but also with a society
Transformed into a monster where friends had
Been swallowed up whole by reality too horrible
That it seemed unreal. And I, as if things of that
Sort were not part of my reality, as if like, for me,
Were effortless.
Perhaps the saddest part of all was to return to
The town square so gloomy compared to the
Memory of my childhood and youth. The words
Those young lovers whispered in private
Reverberated and answered each other in an
Eternity of unrealized echoes and desires.
Dead, wounded, and
Disappeared
Among them
You will find my kin.

And I alone, strong and healthy
As if life
For me,
We’re nothing.